The first step in creating a social media strategy for your small business is to define your goals. What do you want to achieve through social media? How will you use social media to promote your business? For example, you may want to use social media:

or general branding purposes

To interact with your audience

To share coupons and offers

To drive traffic to your Web site

To market a new line of products

Get SMART
When making your social media goals, it can be helpful to take an organized approach to ensure your goals are both concise and realistic. The “SMART” approach to goal setting, described in Paul J. Meyer’s 2003 book Attitude is Everything, can be applied to your small business social media activities. According to Meyer, SMART goals are:

Specific
Goals should be specific and state exactly what it is that you want to accomplish. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reach a goal that is not clearly defined. Specific goals address:

Who – who will be involved in reaching the goal?

What – what is it that I want to accomplish?

When – what is the timeframe for reaching the goal?

Where – what is the venue for accomplishing the goal?

Why – what reason or purpose do I have for accomplishing the goal?

Which – any requirements and constraints

Measurable
Goals should be measurable so that you know when you’ve met the goal. One measure of success in social media is the number of comments, followers, retweets, likes or Web visits you achieve during a specified period of time.

Attainable
Goals should be attainable and reasonable. While there is no sense setting a goal that is impossible to reach, it makes a lot of sense to set one that will make you work hard and provide a challenge. Even if you have huge plans for the future, it is important to set attainable goals now that act as stepping stones to your longer-term, larger goals.

Relevant
Goals should be relevant, consistent with other established goals and timely for your business. A goal that is relevant matches your other efforts, is worthwhile and is appropriate at this time. It is important to consider, “Does this goal matter?” If not, it may be a waste of time, effort and resources to try to accomplish the goal. Goals should matter and help you reach both intermediate and long-term plans.

Timely
A goal should be timely and include a “deadline” for reaching the goal. “I want to have 100,000 Twitter followers” is much less meaningful than “I want to have 100,000 Twitter followers by the end of the second quarter of 2013.” If you have all the time in the world (i.e., no deadline) to reach your goal, you will be under no pressure to reach the goal and, as a result, may not ever be able to cross that goal off your list. Set a date and do everything possible to reach your goal by then.

A good example of a SMART goal may sound like, “I want to add 300 new fans each month during the second quarter of 2013.” At the end of the Q2, you will be able to tell if you’ve met your goal or not. You will also be able to measure how you are progressing toward your goal at the end of each month.
Regardless of the methodology used to create goals, you will need to define what you want to accomplish with social media. Your goal should be something specific and measurable so that you will know the moment you’ve reached it.